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Tuesday, 29 November 2016

We are almost in December, everybody seems to be getting busier and the traffic on the roads is definitely getting heavier. I'm trying to be organised, have written a Christmas card list, as good as finished our present shopping and have dispatched hubby to the post office to send my 12 days of Christmas Swap parcel (it's on it's way Jo, should be with you soon).

Last week wasn't a good week, we had some bad news on Tuesday regarding our son, but he turned what could have been an awful situation right around. It turned from a bad week to celebrating at the weekend, life really can change so much in 24 hours!

The Christmas lights were turned on in the city centre on Thursday evening and the shops stayed open for the first evening of late night shopping. The atmosphere was lovely, Christmas was definitely in the air and children were excited to see their first sighting of the year of Father Christmas when he arrived on his sleigh (I do miss have little ones around). We took Imogen to choose a couple of charms for her Pandora bracelet, one from us and one from her grandparents. Andrew also bought me an early Christmas present, a Queen Bee with flowers. I'm very lucky, it's a beautiful Christmas present and I love bees.

Earlier this week I also found these 2 little girls in a charity shop, don't you think they have the prettiest little faces.

As some of you may know, I have a weakness for dolls. I have some Blythe dolls and some other collectible ball jointed dolls. I picked these 2 up and ummed and arrrred over them for a while. They are apparently Dutch, I don't know anything else about them, just that they are quite old. At first I was just going to get the darker haired one as I liked her face best, and the blonde one is missing a boot, but how could I separate them?

They are so wide eyed and innocent, they looked like 2 little lost girls sitting on the shelf, I had to give them a good home to go to!

I also found a couple of jumpers. It's so hard to find jumpers or cardigans that have a high wool content, so many things nowadays are made with acrylic. I can spend ages going through the charity shops looking at all the tags in the clothes to establish the wool content, I'm sure the people there must wonder what on earth I'm doing!

I'm so pleased with the colours of these 2, dark green and 'sand' for my beach! I also slipped some marzipan in for Andrew, really don't like it myself, but he loves it.

That's about it for me, not much happening here, Imogen is late at school every night madly rehearsing for a play. I thought I'd end with a couple of pictures of our beautiful babies.

Saturday, 19 November 2016

I have had such a lovely time, I've been playing with my wool and those sharp, little, barbed needles that turn it into felt. Imogen goes to a drama club on a Saturday afternoon, so after the usual Saturday chores were out the way (washing, shopping etc), I settled down to finish my felting project that I started yesterday.

... I decided to start playing with it yesterday. I started with a little house with a red door. My house had a path that leads down to a small pond...

...the pond has 2 little ducks paddling on it

Sheep grazing, flowers, bushes, hedges and a tree with red apples on it.

When we travel across the M62, over the Pennines, we go past a farmhouse between the 2 halves of the motorway. I can't imagine what it's like to live there, even though it's surrounded by motorway traffic I think it's very isolated. Anyway, I sort of had the idea of that house in my mind when I made this one.

I'm very pleased with how it's turned out and have plans to make more. I hope you like my little cottage too.

I've never watched it before, but this year I have been completely pulled into watched Strictly Come Dancing. I've loved it, so I'm popping off to watch tonight's episode, to watch those marvellous dancers glide all over the floor... and the not so marvellous... but I envy them all floating and gliding in their beautiful outfits.

Wednesday, 16 November 2016

Thank you for your lovely comments and ideas. After the excitement from making up my tapestry cushions, I felt spurred on to finish a small rug making cushion kit that had been around of a while. I'm not a big fan of rug making, I find it a little monotonous, but it was something to have on my lap while watching TV. I haven't made it into a cushion yet, but will get it sorted soon (I also have another rug cushion kit somewhere that Imogen started and decided she wasn't fussed about).

We've been out and about today, having a little wander around the charity shops. I do feel we can look for ages and never find anything, other days it's like there are things sitting there waiting for us.

I've been looking for some cute eggcups with the intention of making some pincushions. Look what I found...

2 sweet little cats

and this very cute Hello Kitty eggcup. I really wasn't looking for cats, they just found me.

My other find was this lovely piece of Fauna. I have a few pieces of Fauna already, I wrote about a few of them here

I have plans for this piece, which I'll hopefully get round to sooner rather than later (so many ideas and things to do).

Just before I go, here are Alfie and Gary cuddled next to me, I spend my evenings with a little dog pyramid squished next to me most nights.

Alfie popping up to say hello, how cute is this...

... and for all the dog lovers out there (did you know here in the UK we have more dog owners as a percentage than anywhere else), this is just for the smiles (and a few ouches).

Thursday, 10 November 2016

I'm very lucky to have a little space in our house that has been labelled my craft room. When our son grew up and left home, our daughter moved from her tiny bedroom to his old room and I staked my claim on the box room. It's a very tiny room, more like a large cupboard than a bedroom! I used to do a lot of paper crafting, making cards and spent many a happy hour scrapbooking, being in the craft room kept the mess/creative process in one place making it a bit easier.

We had our own business, a shop until a few years ago. When we decided to close the shop it meant there was a lot of old stock to house... yes, you know where I'm going with this, my poor little room became a dumping ground for all sorts, it became a junk room.

I have reclaimed my room, we've been emptying it gradually over time, selling things, donating lots to charity and throwing things away.There's still stuff in the loft that needs to be dealt with, but I think we're on the winning side at last.

I've been spending time over the last few months, sorting out drawers and making the room more useable.

The drawers are full of card, stamps, embellishments and other paraphernalia.

So many papers for scrapbooking.

My wonderful husband made me a workspace from a piece of conti board. It goes from wall to wall so make good use of the available space. Here's picture of the desk looking a bit messy (though far better than it has), in front of the window so I have lots of light. In the middle is my little oven that I use for baking fimo/modelling clay.

I haven't really done any paper crafting for a long time, preferring to crochet the last few years as well as using fabric and felt. I made a couple of cards towards my Christmas stash so I could feel I'd been a little creative as well as all the tidying.

To end with, here's a quote from a man who must be one of the greatest children storytellers of all time, Roald Dahl. How very true I find this...

Friday, 4 November 2016

I've dusted it off and pulled my poor neglected sewing machine out. I have so many ideas of things I want to make and sew, but I'm not experienced or confident when it comes to sewing. A good place to start is with a couple of tapestry cross stitch cushion fronts that I've made (the only way I can get better is by practising it more).

I've shown this cute Bambi cross stitch before when I was making it way back in January (it was a Christmas present).

When it was finished I put it away and found another one I'd started, but hadn't got round to finishing, then when both were finished they sat next to each other in a cupboard full of good intentions until I pulled them out the other day.

So here we go, I found some gorgeous spotty fabric in 2 different colours, pink and green, to use as cushion backs. Measured and cut it so it would fit the back in an envelope style.... not ready to face zips or buttons yet.

I'm sure a seasoned sewer would whip these up very quickly, I went slowly and cautiously, measuring twice and pinning. It was quite easy, so an excellent project to get me sewing.

After completing the first one my confidence grew a little and the second one was quicker.

Feeling quite pleased with myself, I placed them the sofa.

I mustn't leave it too long before getting the sewing machine back out, find something else that's suitable for my amateur level to build on my confidence.